These points belonged to real people

In September I logged in to my United MileagePlus account to find my balance of 168,119 miles had been wiped to zero. A small purchase I made through their shopping portal was never tracked, and without that transaction on the books, the account hit 18 months of inactivity.

I was shocked and dismayed when I saw a zero balance. Nearly half a million Aeroplan miles, gone. The pandemic meant I wasn't flying, and Air Canada's inactivity policy caught me. They refused to reinstate anything.

Starbucks accidentally gave me enough stars for a free drink but they caught the error and now they're making me work off my star debt. They didn't just remove the bonus. They pushed my balance to negative 33 stars.

American Airlines terminated both our AAdvantage accounts and forfeited all our accrued miles. Over 550,000 per account. They accused us of program abuse, but we broke no rules. We filed a class action.

I received a marketing email from Marriott suggesting things I could do with my 207,000 points. Three days later, every single point was expired and forfeited. The promotional email contained zero warning about imminent expiration.

AutoZone originally offered rewards with no expiration dates. Then they quietly changed the terms: credits now expired after 12 months, and store credits after just 3 months. When I asked about my missing credits, I was told they had expired.